Indirect Realism
3
Indirect Realism
Locke’s response to the Inconsistent Triad identified in ch. 1 is to reject
(II)
Physical objects are the direct objects of perception.
Although it is quite difficult to articulate the resultant view precisely, this leads to
what is historically perhaps the most familiar realist strategy.
Accordingly, there are supposed to be persisting mind-independent physical objects
such as stones, tables, trees, people and other animals. This registers commitment to
the first claim of the Inconsistent Triad.
(I)
Physical objects are mind-independent.
The nature of perceptual experience is to be elucidated by reference to certain direct
objects that are set before the mind in such experience. Thus the most fundamental
characterization of any specific perceptual experience is to be given by citing, and/or
describing, specific such entities. The experience in question is one of acquaintance
with just those things, which identify the experience in question as the specific
modification of consciousness that it is. In line with claim (III) of the Inconsistent
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Triad, such direct objects of experience are bound to be mind-dependent things that
are therefore distinct from mind-independent physical objects. Still, we see and
otherwise consciously perceive physical objects themselves. They are in this quite
uncontroversial and theoretically neutral sense presented to us in perception. Our
experiential relation with them is therefore indirect. It obtains in virtue of a direct
conscious acquaintance with certain mind-dependent objects, along with the fact that
the mind-independent physical objects in question are appropriately related to these
mind-dependent direct objects of perception. I follow standard usage in referring to
this strategy as indirect realism.
3.1 Preliminary Concerns
A standard preliminary worry about indirect realism is epistemological. If the nature
of perceptual experience is constituted by the subject’s acquaintance with minddependent direct objects distinct from mind-independent physical objects, then how is
such experience supposed to constitute a source of knowledge about the presence and
nature of any such physical objects themselves? The only resource available to the
indirect realist in response is to cite the relation between direct and indirect objects in
virtue of which a person’s experiential encounter with the former purportedly
constitutes her perception of the latter. This is generally supposed to have two
aspects: causation and resemblance. Mind-independent physical objects of certain
specific kinds and qualities are the normal causes of a person’s acquaintance with
appropriately resembling mind-dependent objects. When this normal explanation
obtains, then she (indirectly) perceives the physical object in question.
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The objection is as follows. The fact that this normal causal explanation actually does
obtain in any particular case makes no difference whatsoever to the nature of the
subject’s experience. For her acquaintance with just such a mind-dependent direct
object is supposed to be the common element between veridical perception and
appropriate illusion and hallucination. This is the primary motivation for the indirect
realist’s endorsement of (III) above, to accommodate the subjective similarities
between veridical perception and appropriate illusion and hallucination. So the subject
cannot know in any particular case that the relevant relation between direct and
indirect objects of perception does indeed obtain. For all she knows in any particular
case, then, she might be subject to illusion or hallucination. Thus, she can never know
such things as that there actually is a mind-independent physical object of any specific
kind or quality before her.
As things currently stand, this purely epistemological objection is quite inconclusive,
and I myself see little hope of any fatal blow to indirect realism on these grounds
alone. For two broad lines of reply are forthcoming, and appear capable of unlimited
revision under pressure.
The more ambitious reply contends that a person can know, either by inference to the
best explanation or by some kind of transcendental argument, that appropriately
resembling mind-independent physical objects provide the normal causal explanation
of her direct perceptual encounter with certain mind-dependent objects; and that this
is sufficient for her experience on any particular occasion on which this is the actual
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explanation to constitute a source of knowledge about the physical objects in
question.1
The more cautious reply contends that such knowledge of normal causes is entirely
unnecessary. All that is required if indirect perception along these lines is to constitute
a source of knowledge about the physical world is that it be de facto true that
appropriately resembling mind-independent physical objects provide the normal
causal explanation of perceivers’ direct experiential acquaintance with certain minddependent objects, which in turn prompts relatively reliable beliefs about the physical
world around them. People need not be epistemologists of their own situation in order
for their perceptual experience to provide them with knowledge of the physical
world.2
As it turns out, both of these replies may be combined with the claim that a person is,
after all, in a position to know, even on a particular occasion on which this is the case,
that she is in fact perceiving the world around her, and not subject to illusion or
hallucination. For if it really is correct on either ground to insist that indirect
perception is a source of specific knowledge of the physical world, then subjects in
any such case may infer from such knowledge, of the fact that there is a mind-
1
See Alston (1993) and Brewer (1999, 4.2) for outlines of both of these strategies for
securing our knowledge that appropriately resembling mind-independent physical
objects are the normal cause of our perceptual acquaintance with certain minddependent objects, and also of some of their major problems. It is unnecessary to get
into these details in the current context.
2
This basic reliabilist idea is extremely popular in current epistemology. Nozick
(1981, ch. 3) is a very influential source, although there are antecedents in Ramsey
(1990a), Goldman (1967), Armstrong (1973) and others. For more recent critical
discussion and defence, see Foley (1985), Sosa (1991, 2007), Plantinga (1993), Conee
and Feldman (1998), Brewer, (1999, 4.1), Vogel (2000), Kvanvig (2003) and
Goldman and Olsson (2008).
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independent physical object of such and such kind or quality before them, say, that
they are therefore not subject to illusion or hallucination on that score. Thus, the
initial objection is mistaken, not only in its conclusion that indirect realism is
incompatible with perceptual knowledge of the physical world, but also in claiming
that, on any particular occasion, for all the subject knows, she might be subject to
illusion or hallucination.3
The situation here has all the familiar hallmarks of a philosophical standoff. One side
claims that indirect realism condemns perceivers to a position in which they can never
knowledgeably rule out the possibility that they are subject to illusion or
hallucination. It goes on to claim that indirect realism is therefore incompatible with
the status of perception as a source of specific knowledge about the mind-independent
physical world. The other side insists that indirect realism is perfectly compatible with
the status of perception as a source of specific knowledge about the physical world.
For opponents place excessive conditions on what is to count as an adequate source of
such knowledge. It goes on to claim that indirect realism therefore places reflective
perceivers in a position in which they can after all know in particular cases that they
are not subject to illusion or hallucination. Given the availability of these alternatives,
and their elaborate and varied development in the literature, there is little hope of a
conclusive refutation of indirect realism on purely epistemological grounds.
A more fundamental objection to indirect realism concerns its compatibility with the
very idea of empirical content, with our capacity to grasp thoughts at all that are
3
I believe that these replies on behalf of the indirect realist are ultimately
unsatisfactory; but I am inclined to make the fundamental objection on the grounds
set out below rather than on a purely epistemological basis.
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genuinely about the mind-independent world around us (McDowell, 1982, 1986;
Child, 1994, ch. 5; Brewer, 1999, ch. 3).4 According to this line of objection, thought
determinately about F’s depends upon either direct cognitive contact with F’s or the
construction of a way of thinking of F’s from concepts of kinds of thing that one has
(had) direct cognitive contact with. The notion of direct cognitive contact clearly
requires elucidation, in the light of which this first premise of the objection is equally
clearly in need of extended motivation and defence. My own critical discussion of
indirect realism to follow avoids the need to take a stand on these issues, though; and
my point in mentioning the current line of objection is to lead us into that discussion.
So it is sufficient for present purposes to think of ‘direct cognitive contact’ as a
placeholder for the mental relations grounding the possibility of demonstrative
thought about F’s, where I take it that the natural assumption would be that these
include at least certain relations involved in perception and also in testimony.
This apparently offers the indirect realist two alternatives. First, it may be said that the
direct cognitive contact essential for thought about F’s requires acquaintance with F’s
themselves. In that case the indirect realist denies that we have direct cognitive
contact with mind-independent physical objects. So it must be shown how we may
construct a way of thinking of such things from concepts simply of the minddependent direct objects of our perceptual experience according to the indirect realist
account. The obvious proposal is that we may think of mind-independent G’s, for
example, descriptively, as the kinds of thing normally perceptual presented in
experiences with F-type direct objects. Second, it may be said that perceptual
presentation of mind-independent physical objects as the indirect realist conceives of
4
I draw heavily on Child’s (1994, pp. 147-8) presentation of the objection in what
follows.
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this itself constitutes direct cognitive contact of the kind required by the current
argument for thought about them. Thus indirect perception of mind-independent
physical G’s itself grounds the possibility of demonstrative thought about them,
without any need for our reflective descriptive conception of such things as the
indirect objects of perceptions with such and such mind-dependent direct objects.
Both of these alternatives sound quite plausible on the perfectly natural assumption
that the presentation to us of stones, tables, trees, animals, and so on, in perception,
however exactly this is to be elucidated, provides us with a conception of what such
mind-independent physical objects are, at least a very rough and provisional
conception of them as something like persisting, unified, extended space occupants.
Without this assumption, though, neither seems to me defensible. For, in that case, the
second option clearly fails to meet what is surely a necessary condition on our
possession of concepts of mind-independent physical objects, namely that we do
indeed grasp at least roughly and provisionally what such objects are. 5 This, I take it,
is the whole point of the requirement for direct cognitive contact with such things as it
figures in the first premise of the objection under consideration. The current variant of
indirect realism asserts that this is indeed provided by perceptual presentation itself,
yet, if the assumption above is unwarranted, then this is precisely what is denied.
Similarly, without the assumption that perceptual presentation provides us with a
conception of what mind-independent physical objects are, the recipe offered by the
first option above for the construction of a descriptive way of thinking about such
5
There are of course philosophers who reject such conditions upon concept
possession altogether, and the cognitive contact requirement intended to meet it them
too, although they may insist upon various causal conditions. See, e,g., Mill (1867),
Kripke (1980), Salmon (1986), Fodor (1987, 1998) and Kaplan (1989). I offer below
a more direct objection to indirect realism that is not bound by any such thoughttheoretic commitments.
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things on the basis of our more basic thought about the mind-dependent direct objects
of perception is equally ineffectual. The proposal is that we think of certain mindindependent physical objects as the kinds of thing normally perceptual presented in
experiences with F-type direct objects, say. Yet, absent the assumption in question,
this actually gives us no idea whatsoever of what such things are. The crux of the
current line of objection to indirect realism is therefore the contention that its own
elucidation of perceptual presentation is entirely incapable of sustaining the
assumption that such presentation provides us with at least a provisional conception
of what mind-independent physical objects are.
Indeed, if the present objection succeeds on that basis, then on plausible further
assumptions a more straightforward challenge may be made to the indirect realist
strategy of rejecting (II) as elucidated above. For it is a plausible necessary condition
upon any satisfactory account of perceptual presentation that this provides us with an
initial conception at least of what mind-independent physical objects are. It is a
necessary condition on any relation between us and the physical objects around us
being genuinely one of perceptual presentation – however directly or indirectly this is
ultimately philosophically to be elucidated – that it provides us with some conception
of what such physical objects are. Perception of physical objects displays their nature,
not in the sense that we may read a complete correct metaphysics of the physical
world off our perceptual experience; but this must at least fix for us the domain that is
the concern of such metaphysics. We must have a provisional conception of what
mind-independent physical objects are. In that case, the crux of the current thoughttheoretic objection constitutes a more straightforward challenge to indirect realism as
a theory of our perceptual experiential relation with such things. So I focus the
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remaining discussion directly upon the key question whether the indirect realist
account of perceptual presentation is compatible with the claim that this provides us
with such a conception of what mind-independent physical objects are.
If, as I argue, it is not, then there are a number of possible responses. I myself propose
that we conclude immediately that indirect realism should therefore be rejected. For I
contend that any adequate account of perceptual presentation must indeed provide us
as subjects of perception with at least a provisional conception of what physical
objects are. I also argued above that this is a necessary condition upon any
satisfactory account of the role of perceptual experience in yielding a form of
cognitive contact with its objects that plausibly grounds the possibility of our thought
about those very things. Of course it is open for others simply to reject this idea that
perceptual presentation provides us with a genuine conception of what physical
objects are altogether. Some philosophers explicitly do so.6 I cannot respond
conclusively to all the issues raised here. Instead I offer a more explicit and nuanced
statement of what I do and do not take for granted throughout my discussion, and of
why I do so.
First, I claim that the basic idea that perceptual experience of physical objects
provides us with a provisional conception of what such things are has powerful pretheoretical intuitive force. This claim itself needs some unpacking. One debate in the
area is between what might be called empiricism and innatism about physical object
concepts. Both parties agree that we conceive of physical objects as persisting,
unified, extended space occupants. The empiricist holds that this conception must,
6
Here I have in mind specifically Langton (1998) and Lewis (2009).
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like all of our genuine concepts of anything, be derived in some way from experience.
The innatist, on the other hand, holds that we are hardwired from birth, and certainly
independently of any of our perceptual experience, to think about the physical world
in terms of persisting, unified, extended space occupants, perhaps as a result of
natural selection. My claim is not that the empiricist side of this philosophical debate
is more intuitive in advance of any relevant theoretical consideration. It is rather that
we have a pre-theoretical grasp of what kind of phenomenon perceiving something is.
Of course this is subject to revision in the light of evidence and argument; but I claim
that we at least start with the idea that something that we perceive is something whose
nature is thereby at least to some extent evident to us: we have at least a rough initial
conception of what kind of thing it is.7 As we will see, the indirect realist is explicitly
driven by this idea, in the insistence that indirect perception at least displays physical
objects as they are in respect of their primary qualities. My objection is that he fails in
precisely this regard. The attempt is revealing though, and supports my contention
that an intuitive starting point in the area is the idea that perceptual presentation
provides us with a provisional conception at least of what physical objects are.8
7
I grant entirely that this claim is more immediately compelling in connection with
sight and touch; but I would also insist that the nature of our own experience in the
other modalities is heavily dependent upon their integration with sight and touch.
What conception of the physical world, if any, might be available to imaginary
perceivers entirely lacking in sight and touch is certainly an interesting question. It is
nevertheless one that I do not address here. See Strawson (1959, esp. ch. 2; 1980) and
Evans (1980) for seminal discussion in connection with hearing that also engages
with the question to what extent to objectivity of our conception of the physical world
is dependent upon its spatiality.
8
Notice that this intuitive conception of perception as revelatory to some extent of the
nature of its objects is not independent of the empiricism/innatism debate concerning
the source of our physical object concepts. For if the intuitive conception of
perception is vindicated, and perceptual presentation does indeed provide us with a
provisional conception of what physical objects are, then there will be
correspondingly less need for any appeal to innate endowment in explanation of the
evident fact that we think of physical objects as persisting, unified, extended space
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Second, there is a perspective from which this idea that perceptual presentation
provides us with at least our initial starting conception of what physical objects are
really is non-negotiable. For it plays an absolutely fundamental role in setting the
domain for the whole debate about realism. The question that we are interested in as
perceivers of the physical world of stones, tables, trees, people and other animals
around us, and, indeed, as philosophical theorists who are also perceivers of such
things, is what the metaphysical status is of those very things: the very things of
which we have our initial conception precisely through such perception. Arriving at
the conclusion that some quite distinct domain of entities may be truly mindindependent, for example, is of little or no significance to us. The constraint here is
not simply that the metaphysical debate should concern those things that we perceive,
whatever ‘perceiving’ may be said to be. It is rather that our metaphysical attention is
focussed from the outset precisely upon the things with which perception makes us
familiar, of whose basic nature we are provided with at least a provisional conception
directly on the basis of our perceptual experience of them: the very physical objects,
as we might say, that we all know and love.
Third, my own positive position developed in chs. 5-7 below succeeds in my view in
explaining how perception does indeed provide us with a conception of what mindindependent physical objects are in this sense. So I reject any suggestion that,
regardless of its intuitive pre-theoretical appeal, it is simply not possible to
accommodate this basic idea in any developed philosophical theory of the nature of
occupants. See Ayers (1993, vol. I) for development of this kind of argument in
Locke against the need for innate concepts and knowledge.
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our perceptual relation with such things. This is impossible, in my view, given the
third claim, (III), from my opening Inconsistent Triad. That is effectively my
conclusion from chs. 2 and 3 taken together. Ch. 4 presents the familiar orthodox
alternative to (III) and finds this also wanting. Chs. 5-7 develop and defend my own
alternative rejection of (III) that I believe avoids all these objections and vindicates
the initial intuitive idea that perceptual presentation provides us with a provisional
conception of what mind-independent physical objects are.
Fourth, and relatedly, there are also more specific philosophical arguments aimed
directly against this starting point. In particular, there is Lewis’ argument for (HT) set
out in ch. 2 above (Lewis, 2009) and Langton’s Kantian argument (Langton, 1998)
for a similar humility thesis that she regards as an elucidation of Kant’s claim that we
are irremediably ignorant of the nature of ‘things-in-themselves’ (Kant, 1929). I
explain in ch. 7 below how I think that these arguments should be resisted. Very
briefly, against Lewis I claim that my own account of perception explains how it is
that we are in a position to know some at least of the relatively intrinsic properties of
physical objects that play an ineliminable active role in the workings of the world
directly on the basis of perception. This contradicts his premise that none of the
intrinsic properties that play an active role in the actual working of the physical world
are named in O-language, “except as occupants of roles” (Lewis, 2009, p. 000 (3)).
Similarly against Langton’s Kant I argue that the receptivity involved in our
perceptual relation with mind-independent physical objects is perfectly compatible
with all that is required for our knowledge of their intrinsic nature on the basis of our
perception of them.
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In the light of all of this, for present purposes and in what follows, I take for granted
the basic idea that the presentation to us in perception of mind-independent physical
objects, whatever exactly this may involve, at least provides us with a provisional
conception of what such objects are.
3.2 The Objection
On the assumption that any adequate account of perceptual presentation must indeed
provide us with a provisional conception at least of what physical objects are, then,
the key question is whether the indirect realist construal of perceptual presentation is
capable of providing such a conception.
To make proper progress with this question we first need an explicit elucidation of the
core indirect realist idea that the direct objects of perception are mind-dependent
entities that are therefore distinct from the mind-independent physical objects that are
nevertheless presented to us in such experiences. This is certainly not straightforward;
but I begin with a relatively familiar conception of the distinction between primary
and secondary qualities, for example, between the shapes and colours of physical
objects respectively (Locke, 1975). The approach that both seems to me faithful to the
key historical arguments in the area and is in any case most useful for my purposes
here characterizes this as a distinction between the relation that the relevant properties
of physical objects bear to the perceptual appearances to which they may give rise in
the two cases. I call this the standard account.9
9
I should say that I do not myself endorse the following characterization of secondary
qualities and our perceptions of them. See Campbell (1993) for an alternative that I
prefer.
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Thus, the most basic distinctions concerning secondary qualities are between, say,
red-type and green-type appearances, and the rest, conceived quite independently of
the question of what their worldly correlates, if any, may be. The characterization of
such appearances is prior to, and independent of, any characterization of the worldly
properties that may in some way be presented or indicated by them. Having given
such a characterization, of red-type appearances, say, we may then define a property –
redness – which applies to mind-independent objects, as that of being disposed to
produce those kinds of appearances – red-type ones – or, alternatively, as the property
of having whatever underlying physical constitution happens in the actual world to
ground that disposition.
In contrast, the most basic distinctions concerning the primary qualities are those
between, say, squareness and circularity, and the rest, as properties of mindindependent things themselves, conceived quite independently of the question of what
appearances, if any, they might produce. Having first identified which property
squareness is, we can then identify square-type appearances as those that present
something as having that property – squareness. So, the relevant appearances are to be
characterized only by appeal to a prior, and independent, characterization of the
worldly properties that they may present.
Generalizing this basic idea, inline with my opening characterization of mindindependence and mind-independence set out in ch. 1 above, then, I propose that the
mind-independence of the objects that we perceive consists in the individuative
priority of their nature over the various appearances that show up in our perception of
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them. Correlatively, the mind-dependence of the indirect realist’s direct objects of
perceptual experience consists in their individuation and characterization prior to and
entirely independently of the natures of any mind-independent physical objects that
experiences with such direct objects may indirectly present to us. Their natures are in
this way at least to some extent dependent precisely upon their appearance in those
experiences. Such mind-dependent direct objects have natures that are therefore quite
silent on the question of what any mind-independent objects may be that experiences
with those direct objects somehow supposedly present to us.
On the assumption that there are mind-independent physical objects such as stones,
tables, trees, people and other animals, the indirect realist may then go on to identify
specific such things as the indirect objects of perception: the mind-independent causes
of experiences with such and such kinds of mind-dependent direct objects. Thus, an
experience with mind-dependent direct object d constitutes a perceptual presentation
of mind-independent physical object p, very crudely, provided that it is caused by p,
where this is of the kind P that normally causes experiences with direct objects of the
same kind, D, as d. The central question to be considered in the remainder of the
present chapter is whether this approach is really compatible with the claim that
perceptual presentation provides us with a conception of what mind-independent
physical objects are. I will argue that it is not.
Before proceeding with that main argument, though, it may be helpful to clarify some
issues concerning my characterization of mind-independence and mind-dependence.
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First, whatever the merits may be of my elucidation of the familiar distinction
between primary and secondary qualities, it is surely a further question how the
distinction between mind-independence and mind-dependence is to be construed in
connection with various objects. I agree that this is a further question but defend my
generalization of the distinction with the insistence that the objects in question are
precisely those whose natures are to be construed in terms of the very properties to
which the initial distinction applies. The mind-(in)dependence of the various objects
of perception that I claim is of interest to us is, or at least is of focal interest to me
here, is on this account the mind-(in)dependence of their nature that provides the most
fundamental answer to the question what such things are.10
Second, the concepts of mind-independence and mind-dependence in question here
are in my view specific concepts that apply in a specific context. There may well be
other equally legitimate concepts of mind-independence and mind-dependence that
are appropriate to consider in other contexts. Here our concern is with the mind(in)dependence of the objects of perception – direct and indirect in the case of indirect
realism where such a distinction is applicable; but objects of perception throughout.
These objects appear to us in various ways in our perception of them. Our
fundamental question as I understand it is whether their nature is entirely independent
of those appearances or whether it is in part in some way constituted by them. Thus,
regardless of the possibility of other legitimate ways to understand these notions, I
propose for my own concerns here and throughout to employ the concepts of the
10
See ch. 7 below for further details about the mind-independence of the physical
objects that we perceive and how this is evident to the subject himself in his
perceptual experience of them.
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mind-independence and mind-dependence of various objects of perception in line
with the elucidation given above.11
I return now to the crucial question whether the indirect realist conception of our
perceptual experience as acquaintance with mind-dependent direct objects
appropriately caused by mind-independent physical objects is really compatible with
the claim that perceptual presentation provides us with a genuine conception of what
such mind-independent physical objects are. Locke certainly thinks that it is, and the
key for him consists in the resemblance between our ideas of primary qualities and
those qualities in mind-independent physical objects themselves. He famously writes
this:
The Ideas of Primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their
Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; but the Ideas, produced in us
by these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all. (Locke,
1975, I.viii.15)
And Michael Ayers develops the point on his behalf as follows.
What calls for justification … is … the assumption that ideas of primary
qualities are more than merely causally correspondent to certain unknown
attributes of things. Locke’s response is his claim that the primary qualities
supply our only understanding both of what external objects actually are and
of what they do. (Ayers, 1997, pp. 17-18)
11
I raise and respond to further questions about these notions in the context of an
extended discussion of the way in which the mind-independence of the objects of
perception in my view comes to light from the point of view of the subjects of
perception themselves in ch. 7 below.
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The proposal is that, in virtue of this resemblance, our perception of their primary
qualities somehow offers us illumination as to what physical objects are.12 The
difficulty, I argue, is that this depends upon the standard primary quality model of the
relation between mind-independent physical objects and the perceptual appearances
we have of them, which is inconsistent with the mind-dependence of the indirect
realist’s direct objects of perception that figure in such appearances. There is a
contradiction at the heart of the Lockean indirect realist account of the place of
primary qualities in our perceptual relation with physical objects.
Recall the standard account of primary qualities. The most basic distinctions are made
between properties of mind-independent objects themselves: squareness is this shape
property, and circularity that one, where these are conceived quite independently of
any question what perceptual appearances such properties may produce in us. Squaretype appearances are then individuated as those that present something as having this
shape – squareness. So the nature of squareness itself is evident from the fundamental
nature of our experience of squareness: that experience just is the kind that presents
something as having just that shape. Thus, perceptual presentation provides us with a
conception what mind-independent physical squares are. They are extended space
12
The source of our knowledge and understanding as theorists of the status of our
ideas of primary qualities as revelatory in this way of the natures of physical objects
themselves and what they do is a delicate issue in Locke. It is unclear whether this
knowledge and understanding is supposed to be derived from a priori philosophical
argument and reflection upon the nature of our perceptual experience of mindindependent physical objects or from some kind of deference to the best scientific
theories of the day that apparently retain the primary qualities at least in their
fundamental characterization of such objects. Descartes of course clearly thought the
former (1986, esp. Meditations II & V). Locke’s official view may well be the latter;
but there is I believe a significant residue of Cartesian rationalism in Locke’s thinking
in this area that leads to a certain amount of tension throughout the Essay. See Ayers
(1993) for highly illuminating extended discussion of many aspects of this
combination of radical empiricism with elements of rationalism in Locke.
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occupants shaped like this; and similarly for the other properties to which the standard
primary quality model applies. Generalizing this basic idea, provided that the natures
of the physical objects that we perceive are individuated prior to and independently of
the various appearances to which they may give rise in perception, which are to be
individuated precisely as the presentation of objects of those kinds, then such
appearances evidently provide us with a conception of what such physical objects are:
persisting, unified, extended space occupants, modified with such shapes as these, for
example.
The core of the current objection is that there is a contradiction between two essential
components of the indirect realist’s overall position. First, the feature of the standard
account of the relation between the individuation of the primary qualities of physical
objects and the individuation of the perceptual appearances to which they may give
rise that makes it possible to think in the required way of the perceptual presentation
of physical objects as the source of our conception of what such mind-independent
objects are. Second, the crucial distinction between the mind-dependent direct objects
of perception and any mind-independent physical objects that may be supposed
somehow to be its indirect objects. Grasp along the lines set out above of what mindindependent physical objects are depends upon the fact that appearances of physical
objects on this model make absolutely evident the natures of the physical objects
themselves. They do so only because the former appearances are individuated
precisely in terms of the latter objects, as presentations of things as just such things.
This is what the crucial resemblance thesis means here, in my view, insofar as such
resemblance really is helpful in the way that Locke so clearly intends. Yet the
defining feature of indirect realism as I have characterized it is a quite general
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commitment to precisely the reverse order of individuation that is associated by the
standard model with the secondary qualities. Mind-dependent direct objects of
perception are to be individuated and characterized prior to and entirely independently
of any reference whatsoever to the natures of any mind-independent physical objects
that experiences with such direct objects may indirectly present to us. Thus the
natures of any mind-independent physical objects that may be identified as the causes
of such experiences are absolutely not evident in any way whatsoever from the
fundamental nature of those experiences. The fact that physical objects of certain
kinds regularly cause experiences with one or another kind of mind-dependent direct
object does nothing to explain how, on any particular occasion on which this is the
case, the subject might be supposed to grasp what on earth such mind-independent
objects are. Indirect realism is therefore incompatible with any appeal to resemblance
along the lines set out above in explanation of how perceptual presentation provides
us with even a rough provisional conception of what mind-independent physical
objects are.
Two lines of responses deserve immediate consideration.
First, the standard model of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities
surely offers an obvious solution for the indirect realist. According to this proposal,
the order of individuation from appearances to objects in connection with secondary
qualities captures the mind dependence of the direct objects of perception; and the
order of individuation from objects to appearances in connection with primary
qualities provides the necessary resemblance to sustain the idea that perceptual
presentation provides us with a conception of what mind-independent physical objects
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Indirect Realism
are. This is indeed an orthodox reading of Locke’s own version of the view (1975).13
It is in my view simply inconsistent though, in ways that are fundamental to his whole
metaphysical and epistemological system.
The indirect realist is committed to the early modern relational approach to perceptual
consciousness elucidated in ch. 1. Accordingly, the most fundamental characterization
of any specific perceptual experience is to be given by citing, and/or describing,
specific direct objects that we are acquainted with in perception. The identity and
nature of such direct objects characterize what it is for the subject to be in just that
conscious experiential state. Thus the question of the order of individuative priority
between appearances and physical objects is a question of whether, on the one hand,
the direct objects of perception are to be characterized prior to and entirely
independently of any reference to the natures of any mind-independent objects that
may be related to them, or, on the other hand, those very direct objects are essentially
to be characterized only in terms of the natures of mind-independent physical objects
themselves. To say, as the indirect realist definitively does, that the direct objects of
perception are mind-dependent is to say that those objects are to be characterized as
the specific subjective phenomena that they are without any reference to the nature of
anything that may or may not exist in the mind-independent world. To insist
simultaneously that the direct objects of perception are to be characterized in terms of
the primary qualities of mind-independent physical objects in order to maintain the
relevant resemblance thesis is simply inconsistent.
13
See also Baldwin (1992).
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Indirect Realism
What the indirect realist really needs at this point is appeal to something like the
Cartesian distinction between the formal and objective reality of ideas (1986, III). As
I understand it, the formal reality of an idea is its nature in itself as the particular
modification of consciousness that it is. Its objective reality is its nature as a
presentation or representation of a more or less specific (normally non-mental)
worldly phenomenon: its nature as an idea of X, say. Formally speaking, according to
indirect realism, perceptual experience is simply acquaintance with specific minddependent direct objects whose nature is to be characterized entirely independently of
anything mind-independent. Objectively speaking, our acquaintance with such things
nevertheless presents or represents mind-independent objects as being certain specific
ways supposedly such as to ground some kind of resemblance between the two. The
difficulty brought out by my argument above, though, is that, given the indirect
realist’s definitive account of the formal reality of perceptual experience as a matter
of acquaintance with mind-dependent direct objects, the proposed account of its
objective reality is absolutely incompatible with the required resemblance. According
to the indirect realist, perception presents a mind-independent object, o, as F, very
roughly, just if it is a case of acquaintance with a mind-dependent direct object of a
type that is normally caused by mind-independent F’s that is on this occasion caused
by o. The mind-dependence of direct objects consists in the fact that they are typed by
their nature – that is, formally – entirely independently of any question of the mindindependent nature of such normal causes. Yet the required resemblance as I have
been elucidating it depends essentially upon the characterization of the very nature of
perceptual appearances by reference to the specific ways that they present mindindependent physical objects as being.
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Indirect Realism
I can see two very different ways in which the Cartesian distinction has a more
promising application in this context. On one, perceptual appearances are
characterized as mental representations of specific ways a mind-independent world
might be: this is the most fundamental way of elucidating which perceptual
experience is in question. On the other, perceptual appearances are most
fundamentally cases of standing in an essentially experiential relation of acquaintance
with specific mind-independent physical objects themselves. Very crudely, these are
the Content View (CV) and the Object View (OV) that are the topics of chs. 4 and 5
respectively. Indirect realism as I conceive of it is an explicit rejection of both. It
retains the early modern approach of offering direct objects of acquaintance as
characteristic of the fundamental nature of perceptual experience, rather than (CV)
representations of ways a mind-independent world might be; and it insists as against
(OV) that these direct objects are themselves mind-dependent entities quite distinct
from any mind-independent physical objects. Thus I conclude that the orthodox
Lockean version of indirect realism is absolutely untenable notwithstanding its
manifest desirability at the precisely this point in the dialectic.
The second line of response to my core objection insists that the universal application
of the order of individuation from properties of perceptual appearances to properties
of physical objects definitive of indirect realism is perfectly compatible with an
account of appearance-object resemblance adequate to sustain perceptual presentation
as the source of our conception of what mind-independent physical objects are. In
order to do so it adopts a generalization of a claim sometimes made on behalf of
dispositional theories of secondary qualities.
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Indirect Realism
According to a very crude dispositionalism, physical objects cause certain experiences
in us that may be categorized purely on the basis of their subjective type, as red-type,
green-type, and so on, quite independently of the question of what their worldly
correlates, if any, may be. Colour properties of the physical objects themselves are
then defined along the following lines. Redness is the property of being disposed to
produce red-type experiences in normal subjects in normal circumstances. A question
then comes up: in what sense, if at all, are red-type experiences genuinely
appearances that something is red, given how redness is defined? McDowell answers
rhetorically on behalf of the dispositionalist: “what would one expect it to be like to
experience something’s being such as to look red if not to experience the thing in
question (in the right circumstances) as looking precisely red?” (1985b, p, 112). In
our terms, the claim is that having red-type experiences just is a matter of things
looking red. For being red is being disposed to produce red-type experiences (in the
right circumstances) and so looking red could be nothing but having red-type
experiences (in the right circumstances).
Indirect realism may be construed as a generalized dispositionalism of this kind. We
have perceptual experiences in which we are acquainted with various mind-dependent
direct objects whose nature consists simply in being the specific subjective entities
that they are, entirely neutral on what their physical causes, if any, may be. Still,
physical objects are precisely the normal causes of such experiences; and, being
subject to those very experiences, we are thereby presented with physical objects as
whatever normally cause experiences of our acquaintance with such and such minddependent direct objects. “What would one expect it to be like to experience
something’s being the normal cause of experiences with such and such mind-
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Indirect Realism
dependent direct objects if not to have in the right circumstances experiences with
precisely those mind-dependent direct objects?” Thus, it may be contended,
perceptual presentation does after all provide us with a conception of what mindindependent physical objects are.
My counter to this line of response is simply to deny that the proposed dispositionalist
manoeuvre really succeeds at all in meeting the requirement that the perceptual
presentation of mind-independent physical objects provides a substantial, if
provisional, conception what such mind-independent objects are. Being in a position
to think of physical objects simply as the causes we-know-not-what of such and such
mind-dependently characterized perceptual experiences, as the current response
suggests, is not yet to know in the relevant sense what mind-independent stones,
tables, trees, people and other animals are. It is far harder to give an explicit
characterization of precisely what is required than to assert that something fails to
provide it; and I do not offer any precise such characterization here. The guiding
intuition, though, is the one that surely moved Locke in his insistence that perception
of such objects as bearers of the primary qualities provides us a conception of what
physical objects are and what they (can) do (Locke, 1975, I.viii; Ayers, 1997, pp. 1718). For present purposes it is sufficient to insist that perceptual presentation should
be the source of something along the lines of our commonsense conception of
physical objects as persisting, unified, variously extended space occupants: certainly
something far more than a conception of them simply as whatever causes these
sensations. The key claim is that perceptual presentation provides us with a
conception of physical objects, not merely as whatever give rise to certain experiences
in us and the familiar patterns amongst them, but as things evidently constituted more
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Indirect Realism
or less thus and so, in virtue of which they explanatorily do so.14 My counter to the
present line of response therefore stands: the dispositionalist manoeuvre simply fails
to vindicate this key claim.
I have considered two lines of response to my objection to indirect realism. Neither is
in my view successful. The notion of resemblance that underwrites the idea of
perceptual presentation as the source of our conception of what mind-independent
physical objects are depends upon an order of individuative priority from the natures
of such objects themselves to the natures of their perceptual appearances; but the
indirect realist’s appeal to mind-dependent direct objects of perception is committed
throughout to the reverse and incompatible order of individuative priority.15
The indirect realist may reply at this point that my focus upon a conception of
resemblance derived from reflection upon the order of individuation from mindindependent objects to their appearances that is characteristic of the standard model of
primary qualities is entirely wrong-headed. A far more straightforward and familiar
account is available. Our acquaintance with mind-dependent direct objects in
perception provides us with a provisional conception of what mind-independent
physical objects are because such direct objects resemble physical objects themselves
in the simple sense of sharing their basic properties. The obvious counter to this reply
echoes a well-known comment of Berkeley’s, when he criticizes Locke’s appeal to
resemblance by insisting that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea” (Berkeley,
14
See ch. 7 for more on the role of physical objects as the perceptually presented
explanatory grounds of the order and nature of our perceptual experience.
15
See ch. 7 also for critical discussion of a purportedly ‘no-priority’ view concerning
the individuation of the intrinsic properties of mind-independent physical objects in
relation to the various appearances that show up in our perception of them.
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Indirect Realism
1975b, § 8). Here the point would be that a mind-independent physical object can (in
the relevant sense) be like nothing but a mind-independent physical object.
The goal is to explain how perception provides us with a conception of what mindindependent physical objects are. The suggestion is that this is accomplished by the
direct objects of perception instantiating the very properties characteristic of physical
objects themselves, by such direct objects being what physical objects are. But this is
possible only if the direct objects of perception are physical objects, which is
inconsistent with the indirect realist’s definitive rejection of (II).
Aiming to avoid this contradiction by postulating shared properties between minddependent direct objects and mind-independent physical objects themselves that are
not characteristic of the nature of the latter as such clearly fails. For the whole point of
the exercise is to explain how such resemblance grounds the fact that perceptual
presentation provides us with our crucial conception of what mind-independent
physical objects are. A historically significant variant of this failed approach is to
invoke higher order, or structural, properties in common between the two kinds of
objects. The proposal is that mind-independent physical objects have natures that in
turn have certain properties; and the natures of the mind-dependent direct objects of
our perception share these higher order properties too. The obvious counter is that if
the common higher order structural properties are, as proposed, common to the first
order natures of mind-independent physical objects and the quite distinct minddependent direct objects of our perception, then they are neutral between the natures
of these two kinds of objects, and indeed much else besides. So they are quite
incapable of providing any substantive, even provisional, conception determinately of
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Indirect Realism
what mind-independent physical objects are. Thus, once again, the appeal to
resemblance as shared properties fails.16
It is of course open to the indirect realist to offer another alternative construal of
resemblance here that is compatible with the position and really does succeed in
grounding an account of perceptual presentation that succeeds in providing us with a
substantive provisional conception of what mind-independent physical objects are.
Nothing that I know of comes even close to doing so though.
3.3 Conclusion
I conclude that indirect realism is inconsistent with the claim that perceptual
presentation provides us with a conception of what mind-independent physical object
are. On the plausible assumption that any adequate account of perceptual presentation
must do so, indirect realism is therefore inadequate as a theory of perception, and
hence unsatisfactory as a response to the Inconsistent Triad set out in ch. 1. Even
without this plausible assumption, it follows that indirect realism is unable to offer
either of the two alternative responses that I set out above to the objection concerning
its compatibility with the very idea of empirical content, with our capacity to grasp
thoughts at all that are genuinely about the mind-independent world around us. Thus,
either way, I contend, indirect realism as I understand it here is untenable.
16
For the basic idea of structural resemblance in defence of empirical realism, see
Russell (1927). For the fundamental objection, see Newman (1928) and Demopoulos
and Friedman (1985). There is a great deal more of interest and importance to be said
about these ideas; but my discussion may be left here for present purposes.
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Indirect Realism
Furthermore, notice that the indirect realist’s attempt to resolve the Inconsistent Triad
set out in ch. 1 by rejecting (II) faces precisely the difficulty that I raised against all
six of the metaphysical views discussed in ch. 2 in connection with Berkeley’s
rejection of (I). It fails to sustain the empirical realist thesis that physical objects are
both the objects genuinely presented to us in perception, and things that have a nature
that is entirely independent of how they do or might appear to anyone. Chs. 5-7 below
develop in detail my own positive account of how exactly this empirical realism is to
be sustained. In ch. 4 that follows I consider what I regard as the orthodox view in
philosophy today of how empirical realism is to be maintained. Both current
orthodoxy and my own position unsurprisingly involve rejecting (III); but, as always,
the devil is in the detail.
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